C T Online Desk: Publications of new titles in the forthcoming Amar Ekushey Book Fair are likely to be reduced sharply due to rise in paper prices.
Writers and publishers fear that the unbridled hike in paper price would hit the industry hard and young writers would be most affected.
According to publishers, the reduction in book publishing is attributed to the hike in paper cost that has gone more than double this year compared to that a year ago.
‘The paper price is so high that we cannot publish more books and sell big which will ultimately bring us more loss. We have no other option, but to decrease production,’ Ittadi Grantho Prokash publisher Johirul Abedin Jewel told New Age on Tuesday.
He said that publishers would be able to somehow manage other costs relating to ink, board and meeting employees’ salary, but the abnormal hike in paper price stood in the way.
‘As people are suffering much due to unbridled price hike of daily essentials, they will shy away from buying books paying 60 per cent extra,’ explained Johirul.
Bangla Academy director general Mohammad Nurul Huda told New Age that the businesses increased paper cost for their personal gain and the government should control the market strictly.
He said that the number of new arrivals would decline, but quality books would remain in the market.
Independence Award and Ekushey Padak-winning fiction writer Selina Hossain, also the Bangla Academy president, said that if publishers reduced publishing new books, young writers would be hit hard.
Publisher of Ananya Prakashani Monirul Hoque, however, went one step ahead, saying that they have to drop 90 per cent of new titles this year compared with the previous year.
‘One rim 80-gramme paper price rose to Tk 3,500 from Tk 1,700. We have to mark the book price almost twice,’ he pointed out.
‘Who is going to buy books paying such a high price?’ he posed a question.
‘People mostly students and middle-income groups are our target customers, but their reading habit is on the decline, and so is the industry.’
Nurul Huda said that the Bangla Academy would mark up the price of its books as much as 10 per cent, but many publishers would double the prices to cope with their high production costs mainly due to paper price hike.
‘Many publishers usually publish books taking money from new writers. If the new writers fail to provide the higher amount of money to the publishers this year in the wake of hike in paper price, their books will not get published this time,’ he said.
According to Adorn Publication chief executive officer Syed Zakir Hussain, they were usually selective about publishing new books, the number of which declined due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the past two years.
‘The prices of paper are abnormally high. We will publish almost the same quantity of books as we did in the previous year, but the price would be much higher this year,’ he added.
Chief executive of Anyaprokash Publications Limited Mazharul Islam said that they had to drop 20 per cent new titles this year.
‘The price of books will go up by more than 50 per cent. There is no alternative to publishing important books although paper price is high,’ he added.
A total of 4,591 new titles were launched in 2018, 4,834 in 2019, 4,919 in 2020, 2,640 in 2021 and 3,416 in 2022, according to the Bangla Academy data.
Academic and Creative Publishers’ Association of Bangladesh president Farid Ahmed said that many low quality books might not be published this year, but production of quality books would go on as usual.
According to Bangladesh Paper Mills Association, Bangladesh requires about 10 lakh tonnes of paper every year, about 60 to 70 per cent of which is produced locally while importers meet the rest of the demand.
General manager AKM Nawsherul Alam of the association blamed the high prices of raw materials mainly paper pulp, transportation cost and high dollar price for the hike.
‘The production capacity of factories declined to 50 per cent due to power outage, gas crisis and high fuel oil prices resulting in the increase of per unit production cost,’ Nawsherul added.
Bangladesh mainly imports papers from Indonesia, China and Korea to meet local demand, according to Bangladesh Paper Importers Association.
